Freedom of expression
An ideal society would let anything be expressed. The real damage of censorship is that it produces a society of frightened, uptight men and women that passes on, through generations, a legacy of fear towards sexual behavior. Mexico as an ideal society has never existed. Humanity has been playing a little sexual game and its cardinal rule is: Do it if you have to, but make sure you feel bad about it and make sure you don’t tell anyone. The problem then for erotic art is that, while society is changing, attitudes toward sex remain almost unchanged. Both those who condemn art as pornography and those who celebrate pornography as art agree on the inextricable entanglement of these two terms. Whether it's the most sexually liberating form of art or the epitome of the sexual oppression represented by art, pornography is crucial for understanding our cultural past.

The idea for this exhibition emerged out of the need to provide a free forum for artists and to expand the general publics opportunity to experience erotic artwork in it’s many forms. This year's theme, “Latin Visions: Mexican Artists Look at Erotica”, developed from the desire to take a closer look at the contributions of the celebrated politically incorrect in society. Our intention in assembling these works is to make more widely known the achievements of some fine artists whose neglect can in part be attributed to their viewpoint, culture or medium and to learn more about why and how erotic artists have emerged as rare exceptions in the 21st century. Latin Visions: Mexican Artists Look at Erotica is the most comprehensive survey of a remarkably dynamic, and growing body of work. The exhibition was developed outside the national and international stoplights, mainly in Mexico City, Acapulco, Mazatlan and other cities just south of the American border. Mexican artists that create erotic art largely worked alone and without encouragement or acknowledgment from the art community. This survey demonstrates that a sense of identity and cohesion has been created by contemporary artist living and working in Mexico. The rich culture and city life has provided the ultimate stimulus and common ground for these artist, who use the sensual and erotic nature of being human as their subject matter. In the past few decades, Mexican artists have emerged as powerful agents of change and a new social drive for freedom of expression.

An awakening... Erotic expresions with a unique "Mexican style"
The past two decades have seen an astonishing upsurge of erotic art by Mexican artist. The assumption of the artist point of view and narrative voice in no way lessens the pornographic structure. On the contrary, it goes one step further in the total objectification of women. For some artist, erotic art is a rebellious attack on repressive institutions of family, marriage and monogamous and compulsory heterosexuality and for some it is an important source of pleasure and liberation. There is an enormous range and variety in the work by these artists. It would be futile, if not impossible to talk of a “Mexican style” or a “Mexican sensibility." Artists have found their own voices in art and their stories challenge the traditional viewpoint and have the power to change the culture.

Investigations designed to find distinctive styles or traits applicable collectively to the work of Mexican artists have not as yet produced plausible results. Only in recent decades has the right to publish, distribute and sell increasingly explicit materials with a sexual content been recognized by the courts. The works in this show deal with some of the problems experienced by artist against the flood of what some consider offensive and even threatening to society. The struggle for the freedom of expression is far from ended, while the contributions to the Mexican culture may be endless.

Artists also use erotic imagery as a means of involving the spectator with the work; we now feel that the individual is most easily defined as such through an examination of his erotic fantasies and impulses. Erotic Imagery thus becomes an important weapon in the battle for modernism placing contemporary art on the front-line.

There seems no doubt that contemporary erotic art may be proof that the artist is integrating in society. Actually, such artists look for just one thing - to attract attention - Latin Visions: Mexican Artists Look at Erotica gives us in exchange the most profound ethical message.

Values and communication ... a new direction
In this dramatic age values and communication about sex have new direction. Our attempts to understand, to use, and to transform is ultimately what the artist employs to express himself. Art is the language that communicates all changes in human activities. For the artists in this exhibition sex is a recurring theme, and even more for those first starting to use it, there can be no doubt that new directions have been laid down in the last quarter century. These artists by investigating sensuality have opened the perspective on a free development while liberating art not only from the imitation of the real thing but also from its censorship. In any event, the situation is intensely complicated by the diversification of new tendencies in art. Conceptualism bases its development on the preceding modern movement and absorbs its formal field of perception then blends with even older generations. But in each aspect art is enriched. All tendencies widen the spectator’s perception as well as challenge to construct approaches to new zones of the human spirit. Before every transformation of direction there is debate over the decadence of art. One of the fundamental characteristics of today’s erotic art is that it represents a movement of liberation.

Our research has had to focus on potential exhibition material and while the biographies and introduction have allowed us to treat these subjects more broadly, the exhibitions format necessarily distorts the ideal picture we would wish to present. In fact it has proved extraordinarily difficult to assemble all the works that we hoped to exhibit here. On the other hand, there have been artists and works that have been deliberately, although at times regretfully excluded. It was decided quite early in planning of the exhibition to exclude Performance art, Video art or Installation art and to include painting, drawing, sculpture and photography. This decision was made partly because the number of works in these mediums this are still developing and seemed to be growing and partly to maintain a kind of consistency in the subject under investigation.

Erotic artwork is the clearest and most accurate mirror of a given period. No other theme provides us with such reliable information about how people, a generation or an individual sees the world around us. The prominence of erotic elements in Mexican civilization as a whole has assured the salience of such themes in art. The definition or categorization of something as “erotic” or “artistic” relies crucially, and in the end, on the successful association of it with something else already classified as erotic. Critics will of course expend much energy and effort in arguing the erotic or artistic qualities of the work in question. This is nothing new in itself in the domain of art, since the twentieth century has seen an increasing liberalization of respectable art. What they are in fact asking is how we distinguish between pornography and art when there is a match of content: nothing but sex in both. With this new problem, it is no longer the presence of “pornographic material” that is the distinguishing characteristics of pornography, but rather the context within which the work is produced and sold. My argument is that it is due to the conjuncture of the pornographic with the erotic that the artwork enjoys such insistent acclaim, and that the arguments for its aesthetics “in spite” of its pornographic qualities reveal the fundamental investments of art. The expression “nothing but sex” connects gratiutousness and meaninglessness. The erotic provides a frame in which the element may be anchored and provides artistic purpose.